


Push me Pull you

by sethera



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: & Attempt, Action/Adventure, Angst, Bad Parenting, Depression, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Family Issues, Fluff and Angst, Human Zim (Invader Zim), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Irken Dib (Invader Zim), LMAO BUT ALSO, Loneliness, M/M, Minor Character Death, Slow Build, Slow Burn, might edit the tags later as i am. big stupid head., swap au, the first few chapters will be pretty tame ykno
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sethera/pseuds/sethera
Summary: Irken Swap AU. Irken scientist Dib, along with his lab assistant, Gaz. Crash land on a strange planet after Dib ran away from Irk, his Tallest, and Irken society all together. Gaz regrets worrying about Dib enough to follow him, as her attempts to convince him to turn around had failed. Now all she wants is to get the spittle up and running again and go home. Though Dib would rather deactivate himself than go back to Irk, he still agrees to help Gaz. They do so whilst in refuge at the home of a weird human called Zim, who has a lot more emotional baggage than he's willing to let on.
Relationships: Dib & Gaz (Invader Zim), Dib/Zim (Invader Zim), Gaz & Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 164





	1. A less than optimal situation

**Author's Note:**

> Mature warning is (currently) for language, violence and harsh topics [in later chapters]

It was dark. The moonlight just barely lighting the forest floor through the gaps in the tall evergreens. The forest ground was lonely and untouched- at least, it was. Until about ten minutes ago.

The texture of the soil was uncomfortable under the aliens’ goggles, rubbing against his green skin and irritating it. The dim blue glare that they gave off just barley illuminated the ground in front of him, he’d have to get those fixed later, he thought. He stuck one of his fingers under the outer rim of the goggles to pry out some of the dirt and adjust his vision. His back hurt, his PAK was running at two-times speed to process what had just happened but it still wasn’t fast enough to ease the searing pain throughout his body. It was probably busted, another thing he’d have to fix after he got his bearings back. Oh god everything hurt, where was he? What planet was this?

He lifted a weak arm up to gently rub at his head. Groaning, he blinked a few times as his vision came back to him. He tried to push himself up with his left arm, but his PAK hadn’t reconstructed the broken bones in his legs yet. So he collapsed back onto his side. Dib tilted his big head around as best he could with his still weak neck, checking out his surroundings. He was in some sort of forest? There was large, tall trees that towered over him, one of which was charred and chipped on one side of its trunk, with most of the branches on that side either hanging by a thread or lying on the forest floor, just as broken as he was.

So that’s what they must’ve crashed into.

The air was cool, the breeze that blew through the trees was helpful to somewhat ease Dib in his dismantled state. He kept looking around the broken tree to try and find his spittle runner- the ship that he- …that _they,_ stole, and then crashed. His superiors were going to have words with him… thankfully, he was one of the taller ranking Irkens, so that helped him get out of more than one troubling situation back on Irk. Oh god, what would the Almighty Tallest say? There’s no way he can- wait, no. The whole reason he’s even here is because he denounced himself of his position on Irk- he can’t worry about what-

DOOF

“AUGH-!! OW WHAT THE-!?” Dib shouted, clutching the side of his head, as his antennae rang with pain.

“WHAT THE HELL WHERE YOU THINKING!? YOU COULD’VE GOTTEN US KILLED!! YOU COULD’VE COMPLETELY BROKEN YOUR PAK AND GOT YOURSELF _KILLED_ YOU MORON! **KILLED**!!”

Gaz stood above Dib, eyes fire-y with rage, an imprint of the tip of her boot left on the side of Dibs head where she had just kicked him. Unbelievable! This is what she gets for being a loyal assistant!

Gaz had flown out of the ships windshield at the same velocity as Dib just minutes ago, but was lucky enough to miss the first collision with a branch, giving her a split second more to extend her PAK legs to assist her in her graceful plunge to the planets outer crust.

She didn’t suffer as much from the fall as her associate did, but she still had some pretty nasty glass shards in the side of her check and left arm, but she can pick those out later. She’s too pissed off to do that right now. Thankfully, her PAK had already sorted out her broken wrist and dislocated shoulder for them not to be a problem anymore. Not that she’d be worried about damages like those anyway, when she had a more pressing matter, potentially dying, on the ground in front of her.

“ME!? YOU WERE THE ONE WHO INSISTED ON TAGGING ALONG! IF YOU HADN’T COME WITH ME I NEVER WOULD’VE CRASHED AT ALL!!”

“LIKE HELL I WAS LETTING YOU FUCK OFF BY YOURSELF AGAIN!!” She shouted back, stomping her boot on the ground, dangerously close to Dibs face. He flinched.

“I wouldn’t have come BACK this time!!” Dib retaliated, keeping a close eye on Gaz’ boot, preparing for another sock in the face at any moment if this shouting matched continued.

“OHH sure, Dib, you would’ve just flown RIGHT past this planet until you were done sulking or until your stupid spittle runner ran out of power and I had to come DRAG you back like last time!”

“Then why didn’t you just let me go by myself!?”

“I JUST SAID!! I have better things to do than to haul your ass around space- Dib!”

“LIKE WHAT!?” Screeched Dib, lifting himself up off the ground, his legs still not fully fixed, running now on spite alone.

Gaz shoved her face in her hands and growled. She really didn’t want to go into detail about how she had important tech she had to test run that DIB should’ve been researching and helping build- but instead he was completely ignoring his tasks to look into forces of the unknown and ghosts and other crap that meant _she_ had to do DOUBLE the work!

Dibs obsession with the unknown and the like was very well known among the people of Irk, Dib was one of Almighty Tallest Membranes finest head scientists, he had a knack for picking things up fast, and was good with decoding and computer science. But he barely ever did any work. The other Irken under the Tallests command would politely ask their leader why Dib was kept at such a high rank when he was very clearly not taking things seriously. When Membrane would eventually wave it off as a ‘phase’, they would go over to Dib himself and very un-politely smack him round the head, or trip him over, or spill his test tubes over his desk again.

Tallest Membrane prided himself and all of Irk society on being the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy, and giving everything that was out of the ordinary a diagnosis and a textbook remedy. Because of that, he discounted Dibs inquires with weird new lifeforms on stray space rocks- or the strange noises that Communicator drone Keef would hear every night in his storage closet at work, with simple explanations as his ‘imagination’ that was running away with him. Insisting that he get his PAK looked at by a specialist technician.

Gaz was Dibs lab assistant, though, truth be told, she was way better at his position as a scientist than he was. Or at least, she was more dedicated to it. And that’s saying a lot, as she, too, would slack off to ‘test out’ new Irken virtual games on whatever handheld she could bring into work that day. The only reason she wasn’t a head scientist herself was due to her height. She wasn’t _short_ per-se, so she was still eligible for the position of scientist, it’s just that the taller Irkens would be offered a position first. Not that she cared, though, as being an assistant had less responsibilities than being a lead scientist. Even if she did do Dibs work for him, she could easily stop at any time and Dib would get flack for it, which she had a few times when he particularly ticked her off.

Thinking about how annoying Dib is made her blood boil even more.

Gaz lifted her head and glared at Dib. He shrank back as his rage subsided, knowing it’s not worth arguing with her further. Realising that his legs still were in pain, he gently fell back to the floor.

As he landed, though, his PAK sparked and frazzled, blue and yellow sparks exploded from the dented crevices of the mechanism. Dibs head flung backward unexpectedly, and he reached his arms forward to balance himself out so he didn’t fall right on top of said PAK.

The PAK was such a vital part on any Irkens continued existence. Gaz continued to glare. He looked scared.

“Ugh, look- here,” Gaz extended her hand to Dib and helped him back onto his feet.

“just put your arm around me until you can walk on your own, doofus.”

“Alright…”

They paused conversation as they adjusted themselves.

“…Hey, where’s the ship? If you want, just set it to self-repair and go back to Irk when it’s fixed, you can just leave me here on this weird tree-planet…”

“Nope. Shut up. You don’t get to be self-deprecating again today. And besides- I can’t even if I wanted to.”

“What? What do you mean you can’t?”

Without turning to face him, Gaz span them both around and began to walk through the trees ahead, Dib hobbling alongside her.

As the ship came into view, it became very apparent to Dib that the spittle would take more than its self-repair system to fix. An entire chunk of the control panels insides where skewered upon a sharp pointed branch rutting out of the tree, the ground was shrouded in glass and broken off bits and pieces, and none of its lights were on.

“…Ah, okay so- alright. Well if we can re-wire the controls-”

“-After prying them from the tree.” Interrupted Gaz.

“A-...After prying them from the tree… then we can restore its repair function and it can fix itself! Right?”

Gaz sighed, running her free hand over her head and pulling at her antennae.

“Yeah I guess- but we can’t just sit here in the woods of a random planet, with your busted PAK, looking like THIS. It’s going to take at least three days to reprogram your PAK and re-activate my communicator and then another two WEEKS at LEAST to fix the wires, and if there’s not enough parts of it to fix itself we’d have to scavenge for parts-”

“-Wait, communicator?” Dib questioned, cutting Gaz off mid-rant. Which was never a good idea.

“Yes. I brought my communicator just in case you did something stupid like this and had no way of getting back on our own.”

“HEY I wasn’t planning on going back AT ALL and I’m STILL NOT!”

“Oh my god okay fine. Sure- whatever. We still-”

“And you can’t let the Tallest know where we are.”

Dibs tone was cold, serious. His weight on Gaz was lighter meaning his legs were slowly coming back to working condition. But he remained close to her, further pushing the seriousness of his request.

“…What? Are you stupid? Of course I have to tell him where we are- we need _help_ , Dib.”

Dib didn’t respond.

“Do you know _why_ I ran away Gaz?” He asked, quietly.

“Well you usually try to run away after the Almighty Tallest belittle you, really Dib, grow a spine.”

“God I just KNEW YOU WOULDN’T CARE ABOUT IT- YOU NEVER CARE ABOUT ANYTHING!” Dib pulled away from Gaz and tried to extend out one of his PAK legs, only for it so get stuck and make a painfully high whirring noise- accompanied by more sparks, and a pained look on Dibs face.

“HEY! BE CAREFUL YOU IDIOT- YOU’RE STILL DAMAGED!” Gaz grabbed a hold of Dibs arms again and extended a pair of metallic spider legs of her own, holding them above Dib, threatening him.

They looked at each other with serious glares, they fought a lot back on Irk or especially on The Massive when they were needed for more important missions and experiments. But they always got back to a safe state between them eventually, they would never _really_ kill each other. No matter how enticing the thought was, for Gaz, sometimes.

But this entire situation was just teetering on too much for them both. Dibs damaged PAK, his reckless attitude, lack of any way to contact home, the broken ship, the weird new planet they were on- who on Irk knows what’s even on this planet. Gaz would rather spear herself with her own PAK legs than tell Dib that she was getting unnerved by exactly the same garbage that Dib has been rabbling on about for the past however long they’ve known each other.

Still, they stood there, staring at each other, neither one wanting to back down.

A rougher breeze blew through the forest just then, the air that passed through the broken metal tubes of the spittle runner created a haunting sound, like a strangled cry of a wolf, or a ghost, distraught with anguish.

“…You’re serious about this running away thing?” Gaz whispered, as if she didn’t want even the trees to hear her.

“Yes. I can help you get the spittle fixed, but I’m staying here. All I ask is that you don’t tell them I’m here. Not where we are. We can fix the ship I promise but I don’t want to go back, I’m useless there anyway…”

Self-deprecating Dib was back. This was never fun.

Gaz stared at her taller associate, thinking over what he said in her mind. She wanted to go back to Irk, she liked Almighty Tallest Membrane, and didn’t understand Dibs disdain towards him. But also didn’t want to pry. Not now, anyway. She concluded that she could figure out a way to twist this to her favour later. …Technically she _could_ just leave Dib to wander the planet alone whilst she fixed the ship herself, leaving him there like he said.

But, she couldn’t, not really.

With a deep sigh, Gaz scrunched her eyes shut and spoke up again:

“Okay. We’ll get this thing up and running without detection and just. See where it goes from there I guess. I’m still going to fix my communicator so I can let Tallest Membrane know I’m _alive._ But, I won’t tell him about you. If you’re serious about this.”

“I am.” Dib replied. He smiled lightly, happy that he successfully compromised with Gaz. One of the most demanding Irkens of her ranking.

“But you’re right,” he continued, “we have to do something about our appearances, I never saw this plant listed on Irks planetary union board so I doubt the species of this planet know about otherworldly beings at all.”

“Right,” Gaz clapped her hands together, stepping back away from Dib, as he finally leaned back on his repaired legs.

“so we need to find out what the species of this planet looks like, and mask ourselves as such, and we need to find a shelter to house us whilst we repair the ship, but we can’t-”

“HEY!!”

Suddenly, a bright light glared in their direction, accompanied by shuffling of grass, a shout, and a strange robotic barking sound. Dib and Gaz both turned to look at what was shining the light at them. It lowered slightly after they didn’t respond to the call, revealing what was wielding the light.

“ZIM DEMANDS TO KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING ON HIS PLANET!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of chapter one.
> 
> Golly! This is a short chapter I apologise, hopefully they'll get more lengthy as I go on- I'm very stoked about writing this and can't wait to continue, I won't have a set schedule for updating this unfortunately, but I'll do my darnedest to not leave too big a of a gap between chapters. I hope people like it.  
> I'm so sorry I'm garbage at tagging this, I'll probably neaten it up as I write more.
> 
> Comments would be much appreciated :]


	2. Who are you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aliens had landed on this new planet and were just getting there bearing together- when they were suddenly interrupted.

“ZIM DEMANDS TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!”

A few feet in front of the two aliens, now stood a short, weird looking creature. It was bipedal, like themselves. It had pink-ish skin, nothing like their green at all. And messy, short, black hair, poorly slicked up into a quiff at the front. The thing stood about 5’4”, maybe 5, a lot shorter than the two of them. Dib being almost 6 foot and Gaz at 5’7” (when she wasn’t hunched over). It was wearing a purple-pink coloured zip up jacket, with pink and black striped sleeves covering the rest of its arms and hand, but exposing its fingers and thumb. Five overall, huh, more digits. It carried a small, shiny, grey backpack too, with the arms tightened all the way. Its eyes were wide, fixated on the two standing before it. The eyes were predominantly white, but they had two small purple and black dots in the centre, pupils, one would assume, staring right at them.

Dib decided to speak up.

“We-”

“WHO ARE YOU!?” The pink thing yelled.

“…We’re-”

“WHO ARE YOU!?”

“We a-”

“WHO ARE YOU!?”

“WE ARE—”

“WHO ARE YOU?!”

“OH MY GOD COULD YOU CAN IT FOR A SECOND!?” Dib took a recklessly wide step toward the being that was shouting repetitively at him, causing it to take a step back.

It glared at him, offended.

“We… are… uhh, shit um-” Dib suddenly realised how totally not prepared he was for this, this was happening too fast- he was such a mess to look at, so different looking from what, he assumed, was this planets inhabitants. It was overwhelming. And embarrassing.

“We’re Irken. ‘Aliens’, to you. I’m Gaz and this is Dib. We’re not gonna kill you if that’s what you’re worried about- we’re not supposed to be here anyway but _someone_ thought it would be funny to crash down here regardless.” Gaz continued for Dib, she was a lot better at conversation than he was, not that she was particularly _polite_ , but her tone of voice and the way she’d stare at whoever she was negotiating with would always win her opponents over.

“PFF- Nonsense! Zim is not scared of a few aliens!! I just want to know why you thought it was a good idea to land by my HOUSE and make such LOUD ANNOYING NOISES!!” It screeched. Yeah, _they_ were the ones being loud and annoying…

Dib and Gaz shared a glance at each other, both trying to figure out what would be the best steps to take in this situation. The thing yelling at them wasn’t particularly threatening, it was short and was armed with a simple battery operated flashlight. And more importantly, it was alone. Two of them, one of it.

“We’re sorry about the noise- but we did crash you know, we’re not exactly in the best situation right now.” Grumbled Dib, the stress was getting to him, and he was getting less and less patient with each passing second.

“Apology not accepted, now what’s up with your eyes? Why do you have bug ears? Are Irkens giant bugs?? Can you see colour or are you colour blind? OR are you like mantis shrimp and can see like HUNDREDS of colours!?”

“I- wh- what I don’t know what a mantis- and our eyes are just- I’M NOT ANSWERING THOSE QUESTIONS!!”

“Why did you come out here?” Gaz questioned.

“I came out here to kidnap you both and cut out all your organs and sell them to collectors online.”

There was a confused and uncomfortable pause.

“BAAHAHAHAHA!! I’m kidding! I came out here because, well, I can’t just ignore loud noises and weird flashing lights that I see from my bedroom window can I? In the WOODS no less!”

“Your bedroom? Do you live around here?” Gaz continued.

“Oh sure, it’s just a little outside the woods, though it’s not really _my house,_ it’s my uncles fancy get away home thing. But I live there right now.” Okay. They understood none of that, but whatever.

“So what business do you weirdos have on Earth? Are you here to conquer it!? Are you gonna kidnap me and take me back to your gross planet!?” It said, somewhat… excitedly?

Earth, huh? So that was this planets name. Interesting.

“NO!! Did you even listen to what Gaz said before? We didn’t MEAN to land here and we’re not gonna kidnap you!!”

“Hmm, yeah I don’t believe that for a second.”

“WHAT! WHY NOT!?”

“Because aliens ALWAYS want to do something with us! Well unless you’re from District 9, then you just kind of exist and are also very ugly- hey maybe you _are_ those ones!”

“Listen- even if we DID want to take you back to our planet, we have no means to do so. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but our transport out of here is pretty busted up right now.” Gaz pointed to the shambled mess of a ship that was strung across the grass.

The flashlight lit up the structure, showing how badly it was damaged. The earthling cackled.

“AHAHAHAAH WOW!! Which one of you was the smartass behind the steering wheel then??”

Gaz kicked Dib in the ankle, prompting a pathetic “ow!” from him.

“Yeah that doesn’t seem surprising!”

“WHA- DUDE YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ME!!”

“I do! You’re Dib and an alien and stupid!! And I’m Zim and a human and I’m GREAT!!” Zim stood up on his tip-toes and puffed out his chest in self-admiration. How insufferable.

Before Dib could retaliate again, there was a sudden noise- a weird mechanical bark, the same as before. Where was it coming from? Dib and Gaz looked around, confused, and tense.

“Oh! Right,” Zim dropped the backpack off his shoulders and onto the floor in front of him, and crouched down. He set the flashlight aside and undid the zip of his little bag. It was shiny and silver and had pink and purple polka dots all over it, as well as a few charms of a strange, circular pink animal hanging of the zipper. It was very ugly.

Zim reached into the bag and pulled out the source of the noise. It was… a toy? A small, grey-silver, four legged animal. A robot, surely, probably not as intelligent as those back on Irk as this one wasn’t even responding to being handled in such a way. It had two triangular floppy ears either side of its head, and two pale blue eyes that stared dead ahead. Zim seemed to flick a switch on the robots belly, as soon as he did, all of its legs started to shuffle about and its eyes lit up. Zim put it on the grass and stood back up. They all watched it as it tried to walk through the grass, only to not go anywhere, and then fall over. It barked again.

“…..Okay….. so what’s that thing?” Dib kept his eyes on the pathetic robot as it continued to shuffle its legs about as it lied on its side, not moving at all.

“This is GIR, he’s my guard dog. Well- technically he’s just a SIR.”

“A ‘SIR’?” Gaz also didn’t take her eyes off the robot as she spoke.

“Shelter Interaction Robot, it’s like a comfort toy thing you give to kids to calm them down or whatever.”

“Huh.”

They continued to stand in awkward silence as the dogs robotic legs whirred loudly with every shift.

“He’s, uh, preeetty good.” Dib lied.

“YEAH he’s kinda shit, but I take him with me out of habit more than anything, I’ve had him for ages so he’s even shittier due to the _curse of time_. It’s truly very tragic!” Zim lifted the back of his palm to his forehead and posed dramatically, at the same time, lightly kicked the robot with his foot. It barked again.

Gaz looked over this mess of a display before her, the overload of new information causing her mind to draw blanks on what she needed to do. Dib seemed more interested by this stupid earthling’s even stupider robot dog more than his busted PAK or his stranded companion. She looked back up at Zim, who seemed almost bored, completely outstanding, given the situation he was in.

“Why are you telling us this?” Gaz finally asked.

“Hm?” Zim looked up to make eye contact with Gaz, Dibs head turned to look at her, too, then back to Zim, also curious to know why.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you feel at all vulnerable? Telling some strange aliens about your ‘guard-dog’ and other personal matters? At night… in a forest?”

“You guys are two wounded weirdos stranded on some foreign planet full of people who’d love to snatch you up- with NO escape, and no disguise. You’re lucky it was my garden you idiots crashed into! For a human I’m being quite merciful!”

Humans? Right, that must be what they’re called.

“ _Your garden_? But you just said this isn’t your hou- hey you said you house was outside the forest! We didn’t crash on your property at all!!”

“YOURE LYING!!”

“Zim, what do you mean people would ‘snatch us up’?” Her stern tone made the human snap back to focus on her.

“Oh, heh, yes. There are a good number of people on earth that would turn you into the authorities if they saw you two were aliens from a whole ‘nother planet! I doubt our government would take to kindly to _extra-terrestrials_ invading their ‘beautiful country’. And I’m sure some freaky scientists would be giddy with joy if they could get their hands on all your bits and pieces.” Zim sneered, menacingly. The way he said everything sounded like he must be playing the severity of the situation up to mess with them… but they absolutely weren’t going to take any chances.

“WELL anyway-” Zim looked down at GIR, whose legs had stopped moving in favour of his robot tail wagging. “-c’mon GIR, let’s get back inside, I can’t see SHIT out here!!”

Zim picked up GIR and switched him off, full this time, so he wouldn’t bark. Stuffed him back in his bag and slung it round one of his shoulders. He picked up his flashlight again, turned around, and began to walk back to, presumably, his house. Wait- no, his ‘uncles’ fancy get away home thing.’

Zim took a few more steps before realising he was the only one walking, he turned back around to look at the two bewildered aliens he had just conversed with.

“So are you two coming or what?” He called back to them.

Dib looked over to Gaz, and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get any words out:

“What about our ship? We can’t just leave it here.”

“Sure you can! It’s not like anyone ever comes out back here- it’ll still be there tomorrow. And if it’s not then I guess that’ll suck for you!”

Dib looked back and forth between Gaz and Zim, as if awaiting instruction- this whole situation was absolutely not what he was expecting to get into in the slightest. He just wanted to get away from Irk, to find somewhere new to sit, and either live on his own measly rock, or die trying. Not… not _this_ , this was so ridiculous, so confusing, he had no idea if he and Gaz could even trust this guy. …However, that also excited him- he loves the unknown, and what better place to completely indulge himself in it than a completely new planet with its own intelligent life!

“AAREEEE YOUUU COOMIINNNGG???!!!!” Zim hollered back at them, waving the light from his flashlight directly in Dibs face.

Well, good things come at a price don’t they? Ugh.

“I guess we don’t really have any other option at the moment do we?” Gaz sighed heavily. She began stomping her way over to follow Zim, shortly then followed by Dib.

The three of them followed in a small triangle formation through the woods, Zim at the front, Dib and Gaz next to each other behind him. Gaz kept her eyes on Zim, thinking about the ship back deeper in the forest. She still wasn’t really sold on the deal she made with Dib earlier, either, and was still mulling it over in her head.

Dib, however, was glancing around the forest, peeking up between the branches and looking at the constellations, occasionally spotting a bird in the distance and softly gasping as he watched it swoop from one tree to another. He was thankful that his interest and wonder in his surroundings where so heightened at that moment, as deep down, he felt horribly sick. Sickly worried about everything he had just done, what would happen to him here when Gaz left, his PAK, and this weird boy that had seemed to wrangle them both back to his own base in under and hour of them being here.

“So what’s with the goofy coat?” Zim called to the pair behind him.

When Dib didn’t respond, Gaz gave him a jab with her elbow and nodded back towards Zim.

“Huh? Oh- me?” He asked.

“Yes jackass, he’s talking to you.”

“Uh- my lab coat? Well, back on Irk, I’m a lead scientist for the Almighty Tallest, so I do like, tests and stuff, and… science… things…” Dib trailed off. Gaz rolled her eyes and made an audible ‘ugh’ sound, prompting Dib to blush in frustration.

“We help advance Irken technology and try to find more efficient and convenient ways for other Irken to grow and to live. We give new ideas, as well as build, test, and examine all sorts of things that Tallest Membrane insists on having checked out.”

“Oh so you’re a science-bug too? Tell Zim! Do they have robot dogs on your planet?” He reached back and patted his backpack to make sure they knew what he was on about.

“Not any ‘dogs’, but we do have robots! Except our ones can talk and actually walk properly, and like, _actually_ guard us.” Dib raised a non-existent eyebrow and folded his arms, trying to look all smug- not that Zim was even looking at him. Gaz rolled her eyes again.

“He asked _me_ , idiot.”

“I _was_ asking her, idiot.”

Dibs smug demeanour was immediately defused, he hunched over and scowled at the back of Zim’s head, trying to burn holes through it with his eyes; if his goggles were working properly, then he probably could. Gaz laughed at her associates’ embarrassment, as did Zim.

“Well what about you? Do you have a title? Or a duty or something?” Asked Dib, desperate to get the attention off him.

“HAH! I am ZIM! That is all you need to know!” He raised an arm into the air as he said his own name, like he was declaring something.

When neither of them responded, he spoke up again.

“Though I suppose my current duty is to house sit for my uncles.” Zim said, much quieter than his previous statement.

“I don’t know why? I have my regular house back in town- and they have their suite or whatever it is that they stay in if they gotta do work-business for a long time. But even still! Zim is the VERY BEST house sitter!! I have been sitting in the house ALL DAY!!”

He sounded proud of himself, though neither of the aliens were really sure why. Suppose they’d ask later if they wanted to know any more.

The leader of the group pushed himself through a hedge and wriggled out the other side, the two participants of the group followed suit.

The grass on the other side of the hedge was much shorter, it had been tended too, and in front of them all, was a house. Its exterior was very rustic- with a bench sitting on the porch and wide windows showing the inside of the house. There was a small rectangular window on the top floor of the house that had the lights on. From it, a weird purple blob adorned with a stupid looking smiley face was sitting on the sill and facing outward into the garden- it’s safe to assume that was probably Zims room, Dib thought.

Zim marched the group up the porch to the door, as they did so, a motion light turned on, making the aliens flinch. Zim took no notice as he switched off his flashlight, then reached into a flowerpot, full of soil and no flower, next to the door and carefully dug out a key from the dirt with his fingertips. Zim fiddled with the key and the handle for a moment before pushing the door open and stepping inside.

“OK freaks welcome to my secret lair- this is the main area, ahead of you is the stairs to secret lair part 2, over there’s the food court, and round there is the bathroom- do you guys even do that?”

“Do what?”

“Like- you know- do you even have a need to pi-”

“We try not to.” Interrupted Gaz, ashamed of Dibs obliviousness.

Zim burst out laughing, and continued to laugh as he made his way over to the furniture and dumped his bag and flashlight on the floor. He sighed before he flopped down onto the couch with a soft ‘oof’.

“Haaaah, gross,”

Dib and Gaz stayed in the doorway, unsure of what to do or where to go. This house was very different to the living spaces on Irk- not nearly as many loose wires hanging everywhere.

“Wooooooow okay my gracious guests, you may come in to my humble abooooode~!” Zim waved his arm up so the two he was singing to could see it. They took that as a signal to enter the house. Still cautious, Dib carefully sat down on the opposite end of the couch, next to Zim’s feet. Gaz, however, felt like she had to make herself known just a little bit more. She marched right up to where Zim’s head rested against the armrest, and rose herself up on three of her PAK legs- pointing another one directly into his face.

“Alright listen here WEIRDO. We’ll take up your offer and will camp out in your base for the night, but if you try ANYTHING to mess with me- _us_. I will take immense satisfaction in taking your lifeless body back to Irk, stuffing it, and keeping you in a glass CASE. GOT IT?”

Dib and Zim both sat unmoving on the couch, eyes wide, not breathing.

“E-ehh, yes! Yes you- you need not worry, ehh, Dib-sister, Zim will only bring harm to you if you break anything in this house- or if you break…Zim…!” He laughed nervously as the pointed end of the Gaz’s PAK leg didn’t change its upsettingly close distance from his face. Dib, whilst very much afraid of Gaz in this state, was also thankful that the annoying human boy was getting a proper shouting at.

“Dib-sister?” Gaz asked, still not moving her robot limbs.

“My name. Is Gaz.” She scowled and leant in closer, making Zims nervous smile even wider.

“Y-YES! GAZ! EXCUSE ZIM I JUST FORGOT FOR A MOMENT!”

“Why’d you call her my sister?”

Zim looked between the two, a little too franticly to keep either of them in focus.

“Ehh- are you not…? Siblings? I assumed you were, though I don’t have a sibling myself, so I’m just going off what I see on TV.”

“Siblings? Well, I suppose we could be? We both were spawned in the same smeetery, and grew up together- but there’s not really been a parent-child sort of situation on Irk in decades, not since cloning and custom smeet creation became a thing.” Dib explained (as best he could).

Zim paused, staring at Dib. Gaz put her PAK legs away and walked over to sit on an armchair nearby.

“…ZIM WILL UNPACK THAT LATER!” He yelled, very obviously confused by the information he’d been given.

Zim shuffled up to a sitting position and grabbed his bag off the floor, he pulled out GIR and set him on the coffee table in front of them.

“SO.” He started,

“What is your plan?”

“Zim we’ve said before we’re not here to take ov-”

“NOT WHAT I MEEAAN DIB-STINK!!”

D…Dib-stink? Rude…

“I MEEAN what is your plan to get off of earth and back home?”

Dib sank into the sofa at that statement, he could feel Gaz’s eyes on him, and felt the guilt seep through him, properly this time.

“Well. Our plan to get ME off of Earth. Is that I have to fix up Dib-idiots PAK, fix my communicator, rewire the ships internals, then wait for it to reconstruct, which may require some new substitute materials until we can get it back to Irk or a proper pit stop somewhere.”

Zims’ face scrunched up, he was trying to understand what was being said to him- but so many of the words were unknown to him, he just had a hard time processing it all. Okay, he thought, from the top.

“Ok, so uh… PAK! What is a PAK?"

“Well,” Dib decided to take the stage here, “a PAK is like a life support system, it regulates our organs and blood as well as heals us when we’re hurt, it’s got storage and weaponry and keeps a log of all our data about who we are and what we do for easy access.”

“Yeah- and Dib’s is busted, hence why I gotta fix it.”

“What’s up with it being busted?”

“Well right now it’s disabled his Pak legs and it takes longer for it to heal him, if it doesn’t get fixed it might lose its function to regulate his blood circulation or something else, causing him to die slowly as if he didn’t have a PAK at all.”

Zim turned to Dib, a shocked look on his face. Dib looked back at Zim, more confused than anything- sure that was a very worrying thought, but he knew Gaz could fix it up, and now that they were inside, he wasn’t _too_ worried.

Suddenly, Zims face dropped to a disappointed stare-

“Well if you die, don’t die on my sofa- if you die in this house I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL **NOT** HAVE THIS HOUSE SMELLING LIKE ROTTEN ALIEN MEAT!!”

Gaz laughed, again, at Dib’s misfortune. It was Dibs turn to roll his eyes now- he shook his head and grunted.

“Well- it’s going to take a few days to fix, maybe three, two and a half if we’re lucky, so we might have to stick around until we can at least get that sorted out.”

Zim stared at Dib after that inquire, a mix of clashing emotions swimming around his brain- after a few moments he realised he’d not said anything, so:

“Y-yuh uh yes! Yeah! Ok! If you must! BUT do NOT mess up the house!! OR outside the house!! Zim is sitting this house remember!!!! I must look after it for Uncle Red and Purple!! Now there is a spare room upstairs that you may use, or you could sleep down here. NO ONE IS GETTING ZIMS BED THOUGH!” He yelled, again… why does he always yell…!?

As he ranted, Dib and Gaz got up off their respective seats and sat down on the floor, the opposite side of the coffee table to where Zim was- with Gaz behind Dib. She had started to take out the necessary tools for the procedure and was placing them neatly on the coffee table, being careful not to move GIR.

“Oh, uhh,” The aliens both glanced at each other, then back to Zim- Dib continued:

“um, we don’t really need sleep? I mean- we still have to rest, but our PAKs recharge if we’re plugged into a power source. Or it self-charges if we go into slow mode, which is what I’ll do whilst Gaz starts to fix up my PAK.”

“I’ll have to recharge tomorrow in turn,” she added.

“Oh. Okay. Wuh- so you’re starting now? Like now-now??”

“Well… yeah? If that’s alright?”

“Of COURSE it is Dib-moron- I _JUST_ SAID I don’t want you dying in my house!! HOWEVER! BECAUSE OF THIS NEW INFORMATION!!” Zim hopped down off the sofa and sat cross legged on the floor, curiosity and fire in his eyes, as well as sheer exhaustion. “ZIM WILL MONITOR YOU!!” He beamed mischievously.

“What? Zim you just said you need sleep. How much sleep do humans need to recharge?” Asked Dib. Gaz was putting on safety goggles and laying out her tools.

“NORMAL humans are SUPPOSED to get seven to eight i-sh hours of sleep a night- but I can’t let you two be awake and in the same house as me whilst I’m unconscious!”

Well he had a point, it was a bit weird to let strangers into your house, and then fall asleep with them still around.

“Well okay but we’ll need your assistance when it’s light outside- we can’t risk being seen by anyone else until we have disguises… what time does it start to get light out?”

“Around like five or six or whatever I dunno…” Zim yawned.

“Wh- Zim it’s already THREE! You should go to sleep or you won’t wake up until the afternoon.” Gaz chimed in, it seemed that Dibs internal clock also wasn’t working.

“Whyyy’s that even matter!!” He demanded, more than asked.

“We just want to get out of your hair as soon as we can Zim.”

Nnnnnonsense, Dib-thing! Nothing can get in the way of the amazing z… ZIIM!!...mmm...”

Ten minutes later, and he was fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of chapter 2.
> 
> Wow! It's Zim! It's a lot of fun writing dialogue for all of them talking together, I hope people like it. And yes, Red and Purple are Zims uncles, god what kind of a human name is 'Purple'? I'm not changing it though lol.  
> Zim is sleepy


	3. Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Zim finally asleep, maybe Dib and Gaz have a moment to talk.

Zim slept like a rock.

The clicks, sparks and clunks from Dib’s PAK not disturbing him in the slightest. His breathing was soft, or at least, it was now that Gaz had lied him down on the couch. Before that, his head was lulled back against the cushion from his seat on the floor, mouth agape, snoring loudly. Dib had helped by covering him with a blanket he found draped over the back of a chair, reluctant to get to close just in case he woke the sleeping human from his rest.

Gaz had been poking around in Dib’s PAK for two hours now, getting most of the important aspects of it back online. She wasn’t fully trained to fix these, which worried Dib slightly, it also was why this was going to take more than one appointment, as opposed to a single, one hour sit down that it would normally take with a fully trained Irken. He knew ultimately that she’d do just fine- she surly had read up about PAKs before, and even if she hadn’t he figured she could decipher how it worked on her own. Gaz messed around with virtual entertainment tech back on Irk just for fun. Even so, the occasional curse under her breath would make Dib’s spooch tense up, immediately assuming the worst, though it was usually just because she nicked her fingers on cracked bits of metal or glass. Nothing serious.

Dib was holding Zims phone whilst he was getting his PAK repaired, he heard it vibrate from inside his bag and was curious about it. They had much more advanced tech on Irk of course, and dib didn’t want to _snoop_ … but he used Zims sleeping thumb to unlock the device JUST so he could use the online research function! Of course Gaz had called him a creep for wanting to dig through Zims belongings but he needed it for important things!! Which, surprisingly, Gaz did come around too once Dib started telling her factoids about human society that he got from across various sites on the human internet.

He looked at various animals, people, places, food, he had understood that water was something they would have to avoid, as well as most foods. He watched some videos of humans preparing foods, which he found fascinating, as well as a few videos of animals being stupid and clumsy, of which there was an abundance of, it seemed. Gazs’ interest was perked when Dib had mentioned there seemed to be an entire earth culture of watching other humans playing videogames, though Gaz initially insisted there was no point in watching OTHERS play when you could just PLAY the game yourself, but she did find herself glued to the phone screen of a video that Dib found of someone playing a colourful game about humanoid cephalopod creatures and paint, or something. Gaz desperately wanted to play it, instead of doing this.

Eventually, Dib was allowed to have the phone back, Gaz insisting that she still thinks the video game watching was stupid- and that playing them would be a much better use of her time.

Dib found himself mindlessly scrolling through another list of human discussion, this one about some kind of old TV show that younger humans enjoyed. Evidently, it was about aliens! Well, about a kid who could turn into aliens with help from an accessory, which gave Dib ideas about how they were going to disguise themselves. In this human show the boy would actually turn INTO the aliens, Dib couldn’t see a way for him to do that… but a way to mask himself in a hologram? Some kind of illusion tech that he could implement into his and Gazs’ PAKs? That seemed easy enough! He just had to figure out what to look like.

He looked up from the phone and glanced over to Zim, still asleep on the couch. He was human, so maybe it would be worth taking pointers from how he looked? Though Dib wasn’t sure where Zim stood in the general ranking of human society, would trying to look like him help them _fit in_ or if it would make them stand out more?  
Either way, Dib looked over the sleeping body across from him, he had messy hair, matted together, at the front, buzzed short around the sides. He had peachy skin, with dark circles under his eyes, as well as a few faint red spots around his forehead and chin. His nose was small and weird-looking, though any nasal protrusion looked weird to an Irken- they all had flat bumps where that would be. Dib also noticed that the human’s ear had a black dot near the base- or the ‘lobe’, as he found it was called whilst looking at some diagrams online.

“What do you think of him?” Gaz chimed in, her voice making Dib jump- like he had forgotten she was even there.

“What? Oh- ugh, he’s annoying, but I guess I’m thankful he’s letting us stay here as opposed to the woods.”

“Is that all?” Dib could sense a smile in her tone, a smug, irritating smile.

“Yes! What more do you want from me?”

Gaz glanced over at Zim, he was a lot nicer when he was like this.

“I think he’s funny.”

“Really?” You could hear him roll his eyes at that.

“Yeah, he calls you names and you get mad, it’s funny.”

“What th- really!? You think he’s funny cuz he’s an asshole to me!?”

Gaz ignored the outburst and started to put away her tools.

“Oh- are you done for now?”

“Yeah, your main parts are all fixed now so it’s not like you’ll die, I still have a bit more to do though, like, you only have one working PAK leg at the moment, but I need a break.”

“Okay. Yeah, ok, that’s fair. Thanks.” Dib turned back to smile at Gaz, she simply gave a thumbs up and slammed the PAK shut.

“It’s actually gonna take less time to fix than I thought,”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, none of your memory bank was damaged so I don’t have to figure out how to work that thankfully.”

Dib paused, that reminded him… of…

“Dib?”

“Wh-uh yeah ok, I mean, I coulda told you that my memory was fine- but thanks anyway.”

“Alright loser. Now give me Zims phone.” She held out her hand, expectedly.

Dib didn’t want to argue with her about it, and sure, he had read up enough information on earth stuff for the time being, once his PAK was fully fixed he could replicate the phone and make his own device then connect it that way. He also could’ve just brought his own tech, but during his midst of anger and tears on the way to the ship bay, he didn’t really think about what to bring, he didn’t think about anything except for running away. He couldn’t think about anything but running away. He held his hand out to Gaz just out of reach, not on purpose, but because he was now too deep in thought to pay attention to what he was doing, Gaz noticed this and chose not to say anything.

“Nnnmmmghh…”

The groaning sound snapped them both out of their bizarre trance, and they lifted their heads up to face Zim. Who was now sitting up and facing them. His eyes were just barely open and he was sweating, he brought a hand up to rub the sleep out of his eyes and tried to focus on what he was looking at.

“Uughh, you guys weren’t a dream then huh?”

The aliens looked at each other, Dibs outstretched arm still clutching his phone, Gaz still reaching for it.

“Why do you have my phone?”

Neither of them responded.

“Uuhhhh…” Dib started, “Uhh- I just, wanted to look up some stuff I’m- I should’ve asked I just- you were asleep and so I th-”

BOOF

A cushion hit Dib square in the face, causing him to recoil and loose grip on the phone, it fell to the floor with a thud, as did Dib.

“WH- BFFB- HEY WHAT THE FUCK!?”

“DO NOT TAKE ZIMS THINGS!!” He screeched, god… please go back to sleep… you’re so loud…

Zim lent over the coffee table and picked up the phone off the floor, and pocketed it.

“What were you doing with Zim’s possessions…?” He scowled at Dib, still recovering from the pillow attack.

“I was just- I was JUST looking up some things online to understand more about you humans so we wouldn’t completely out ourselves on day one.”

“Pff, foolish bug, you already have! ZIM KNOWS WHAT YOU ARE, REMEMBER!?” He cackled, how did he have this much energy already? It was only 7am, he got _four_ hours sleep…

Dib growled angrily at the human whilst Gaz just rolled her eyes and stood to her feet. Her legs had cramped up from being idle for so long, a stretch like this felt amazing. She lifted her arm above her head and twisted around, getting out all the knots in her strange, alien ligaments.

With a relaxed sigh, she asked:

“Hey Zim, do you have a computer?”

Zim broke the glare-off he was having with Dib to look up at her.

“Ehh, yes, I do. Why? YOU CAN’T HAVE IT!!”

“Cool, where is it?”

“BUT ITS ZIM’S!!” He yelled, thrusting his fists into the blanket on his lap.

“Zim, shut up, we need a computer to help make our disguises.” Groaned Dib.

“Yeah, and we could use the computer in the ship, but, you know how THAT turned out.”

More awkward silence settled between them all.

“Ehh- very well! Well, Zim shall go get his computer! Eugh, and also change into less sweaty clothing…” Zims clothes felt warm and sticky against his skin, sleeping in them was a terrible idea, but made even worse that he was under a blanket, who did this!?

Zim hopped up off the couch and grabbed GIR,

“Zim is going upstairs now! Do not mess with anything, just… do… nothing!” He demanded, clutching GIR close to his chest.

“Do you have any games?” Asked Gaz, completely unfazed by Zims attempts at asserting authority.

“Oh yeah- Gaz was really into these videos of some guys playing a game about, uh, rainbow octopuses or something?”

“Oh, Splatoon? Yes Zim has that.”

Gazs’ eyes went wide, as did Zims (out of fear.) She took a step forward towards the human, who couldn’t take a step back due to the large furniture behind him, and grabbed the neck of his jacket.

“Where. Is it.”

Zim was sweating even harder now, he pointed a shaky finger over to the TV.

“Over there, it’s the thing with the green and pink handles… please put Zim down…”

Gaz looked over to the TV and dropped Zim back to his feet. She grabbed the console and sat back down in her armchair, comfy and content.

“Cool,”

“Do you-”

“I can figure out how to play on my own thanks.”

“Eh, ok! Dib! What are you going to occupy your gross self with whilst Zim is upstairs?”

“Uh, I guess I’ll just watch TV?”

“If you must!”

Zim lifted his leg up and kicked the TV remote, which had been sitting on the coffee table, over to dib, who flinched and flailed his hands about trying to catch it. He held it and glared at Zim, who was beaming like a child. The human hopped on the spot and span to face away from him, and headed towards the stairs.

“Don’t break anything!!” He called back. Dib responded with a grunt.

-

Zim made it up to his room after stomping up the stairs, anything to show authority! He walked into his room and clumsily placed GIR down on his desk, next to the laptop. The one he had to retrieve for the… aliens in his house.  
He was taking all of this information really weirdly, he hadn’t been super into aliens really, or anything like that, but he also hadn’t been opposed to the idea either, and now there were two of them downstairs watching TV and playing his videogames. Weird.

He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks, tossing them on the floor. He bent down to his bottom dresser drawer and pulled out another pair of black pants, these ones had shittier pockets, but they were torn at the knees, which looked cooler. He grabbed a pair of green socks and funky patterned boxer-briefs and swiftly changed into those, not liking the thought of being that exposed when there were extra-terrestrials just downstairs…

Ok, good, he was changed on that half- it felt way less sweaty. He unzipped his jacket and hung it around the bedpost, looking down at himself, he was wearing a green shirt with a moose silhouette in the centre and text under it that read ‘welcome to Canada! Fear us.’ Zim had never been to Canada, he just saw this at a thrift store once and thought it was funny, also, he _did_ like moose. Either way, he carefully lifted it over his head, and flopped _it_ onto the floor as well. He turned slightly to face himself in a mirror above his dresser, he should probably have a shower, but he didn’t want to. He looked at the striped pink and black sleeves that covered his arms. He didn’t want to take them off, he knew he probably should, he has a green pair he could replace them with, but…

Oh, fuck it, whatever.

He rolled the sleeves down his arm so they collected at his wrist, then pulled them off and, you guessed it, onto the floor. He reached back into his dresser drawer to grab at the green pair staring at him. He tried his best to ignore how the scars felt as he rolled the sleeves up without looking at them. Once they were up over his arms he snatched out a pink t-shirt and threw it on, he stood on his tip-toes to look at the design in the mirror. A small yellow robot in the centre of the shirt was holding a blue balloon, the colours were all so bright and obnoxious, especially mixed with the neon-green of his sleeves. He picked up the laptop off the desk and headed back down, not before grabbing his purple beanie and pulling it over his unwashed hair.

\--

Back in the living room, Gaz was still playing on his switch, and Dib was flipping through various documentary channels, not really watching anything in particular. Zim placed the laptop down on the coffee table in front of Gaz, and headed over to the kitchen.

“You alright?” Gaz called, not looking up from her game.

“Yes! Yes Zim is okay, just hungry. He- I need food.” He stumbled on his words a bit, his mind being forcibly fogged by thought he didn’t want. Maybe he should yell at Dib some more. No, he just had to eat something, surely.

“Do you guys eat??” He called back,

“Yes we _eat”_ Dib scoffed, of course Irkens had to eat, stupid human.

“Don’t talk to Zim with that tone!” The slam of a cupboard made Dib jump out of his seat and turn his head around to face the kitchen.

Zim laughed, of course. Finally snapped back into reality.

“Then Zim shall make us all waffles!!” He declared, throwing down a bag of the food that would just need to be warmed up in the microwave. He plated them loudly whilst Dib watched, placing two on each plate, using up all six that were in the bag. One by one they went in and out of the microwave until they were done, Zim placed the plated breakfasts up on the counter, the small wall between the kitchen and the living space had three barstools on the living room side. Zim walked round and dragged one into the kitchen area and started to decorate his waffle.

“Are you two coming to eat or what? If you don’t then I will eat yours!!”

Gaz’s game finished just as the humans yelling ceased, so got up and sat on one of the chairs, as did Dib.

“I don’t know how you two eat your food so I have given you syrup and butter and some fruit,”

The fruit was visibly mouldy.

“You are welcome. I know, I’m such a good host.” He said with a smile, pouring tons of maple syrup all over his waffles and greedily chomping down one down.

Gaz took the syrup and drizzled s little bit onto the waffles and took a bite without second thought. They weren’t bad. They weren’t _great_ , but they didn’t taste like they were going to kill her, so she ate.

Dib looked at his waffles, then at Zim, whose mouth was sticky with maple, eugh... Dib also drizzled just a bit of syrup onto his breakfast and cautiously took a bite. Yeah, not terrible, not great, good enough. Good enough for their first earth-meal.

“So!” Said Zim, through bites.

“What’s you guys’s plan then?”

“Wel-”

“I’m going to stay here and make us holographic disguises with the help of your laptop, and you two are going back into the woods to start trying to pry the ship from the tree.” Gaz cut Dib off before he could say anything coherent.

“WHAT? But I thought _I_ was gonna do the disguises! It’s you who wants to get off this planet anyway- why don’t YOU do the ship!??”

“You were, but I’m not having you make my disguise look ugly, and you’re getting the ship unstuck because you were the one who crashed it. Plus I want to stay here and play videogames.”

“GAZ YOU CAN’T JUST-”

A glare from her shut him up fast.

“Uhghghhhh… FINE.” Dib continued to angrily eat his waffles.

Zim looked between the two, trying to ask why he was needed to help with this, but also too afraid to in case the girl alien would snap at him like she does with Dib. He finished his waffles instead, then looked up at Gaz, who was still eating.

“Why-”

“You’re going with Dib because I don’t trust him on his own, also you know the area better than we do, which will mean this idiot shouldn’t get lost.”

Was she ever going to start a sentence without cutting off someone else? They continued to finish their food in silence, then Zim took the plates over to the sink, he’ll wash them when they get back.

Gaz walked over to the laptop and opened it up, taking out wires from her PAK that she needed, and plugging them into some adapter she took out as well. Dib and Zim watched curiously.

“You two might as well get going now, the sooner I can start fixing the ship, the better.”

“Then why don’t _YOU_ go do the stinkin’ ship.” Dib mumbled under his breath, but not quite enough as Gaz shot a PAK leg at his and held it in front of his face- Zim yelped in surprise and fell down behind the counter.

“OK, OK WE’RE GOING OH MY GOD!!” Dib jogged over to the front door along with Zim and stood there, looking back at Gaz as she tinkered away on the computer and various wires. Zim opened the door and stepped out, waiting for Dib to follow.

“HEY!!”

Dib turned to face Zim and shuffled himself out the door. Zim closed the door gently, and headed for the woods, alien behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter threeeeeee! This was going to be longer but I've decided to make that chapter four, oops.
> 
> also i am on tumblr as deepkill if you want to say hi :]


	4. If you go out in the woods today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zim and Dib head off to the woods to begin sorting the spittle out. What could go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a small change in chaper 2 where i changed zims height from ~5'2 to ~5'4, I realised i made dib "almost 6 foot" so the height difference felt a little *too* goofy

Trudging through the forest in the daylight was a lot let ominous than it was the night before. The tall evergreens seemed so peaceful in the morning sun, and looked a lot less like tall monsters that would stomp on you with no regard. The air was warm but not unpleasant, the birds were noisy, Dib’s antennae listening in to each little song he could. The grass gently caressing his legs was a much nicer sensation now that he could fully feel them, so was the breeze on his face. Something about walking around in the quiet was very calming, helping to subdue any worry he had about his PAK, or his tallest, or Gaz back at the house, or his-

“Has she ever actually hurt you before?”

Oh, yeah.

“What?”

“Gaz. Has she ever hurt your or are you just really scared of her?”

“I am not scared of her, and you ran out of the house too!”

His peace could only last so long, couldn’t it?

“ZIM DID NOT! I JUST WANTED TO GO OUTSIDE!!” Zim lifted his hand and waved nonchalantly, without turning around.

“YOU—” He took a breath. It’s been five seconds, please don’t pick a fight alredy. “No, I’m not scared of her, but yeah sure she’s bonked me on the head a few times, but nothing serious. Y’know I think she probably wanted to be a technician? Working on defence or something, so really she’s overqualified for her position. I don’t know why she stayed working with me.”

Zim could sense the tone of his voice shift, and felt a twinge of guilt for asking. Just a little, but not that much.

“Well maybe if you were a better scientist you wouldn’t NEED a lab assistant!”

“What? That’s not how- I am a great scientist!!” Dib picked up his walking pace so he was side by side with the little twerp talking out of hand.

“Oh yeah? Why’d you leave then? You get kicked out?? Cuz you SUCK!?”

Oh he was speaking WAY out of line, Dibs previous calm mood had shot right across to fuming.

“I DIDN’T GET KICKED OUT I- YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT YOU- Ugh… well, what about you? Why are you such an asshole to new people you meet? Or is it just us?” Dib was doing his best to keep it together, but oh BOY was it getting difficult.

“No, just you specifically!”

REALLY difficult...

Before he could retaliate, he began to recognise the dishevelled area of forest they had walked into, the ship would be around here somewhere- and at this point he wanted to get to work on it just to end the conversation. If you could even call it that. So they walked the rest of the way in silence, neither of them speaking a word as they walked right up to the ship.

In the light of the day, it was easy to see how banged up it was. Steel and other metals jutted out from the side, blue tinted glass shattered all over, wires and cables strung all over the tree. As if someone had been stabbed and had their insides put on display by some sick killer to keep others away. It was honestly impressive how badly he had managed to crash this thing. But the sooner it was fixed, the sooner he’d never have to see it again.

Zim kicked the ship to kill the silence between them, the sudden thud spooked some nearby birds as they squawked and flew away, grabbing Dibs attention. A black feather gently floated down from one of the birds, Dib watched as it laded gently on the broken up hood of the ship. He wanted to hold it, to see what it felt like- but before he could- the human clambered onto the wreckage and snagged it for himself.

“What?” He said, finally turning around to look at the alien.

Not wanting to argue again, Dib shook his head, and sighed, “Let’s just… start gathering this stuff back up.”

They stood on either side of the space vehicle, away from each other, as they picked up broken bits of ship and gathered up the sprawled wire-y insides. Putting it into what was left of the pilot seating area, seemed like the best place for it, even if all that did was make it a concentrated pile of junk as opposed to a spread out load of junk.

Most of it from the surrounding area got cleared up quickly, it was just the parts stuck to the higher reaches of the trees branches that they needed. Dib was cautious about using his PAK legs to climb up there yet, he knew they were probably fine but he still didn’t want to risk falling and fucking it up again. So he stared up at the branches, trying to figure out some other way of getting them down without ruining this further…

Zim followed his gaze up the trunk to where the few last entrails of the spittle were tangled around some thicker branches. He smiled to himself, walked over to where the lowest branch was, and looked at Dib.

“Elevate Zim!” He demanded.

“…What?” Dib cocked his head to one side. What?

“Give Zim a boost!! I can climb up there since your pathetic alien self can’t do it!”

“I’m not going to help you if you talk to me like that- I am Irks FINEST SCI-.” He breathed in, slow. “You know what? Fine, sure, whatever.”

“Yeesh someone’s grumpy this morning. Are you sure Irkens don’t sleep? Maybe everyone else just lied to you about that.” The human narrowed his eyes and smiled in triumph at the Irken. Maybe if I throw him hard enough up the tree he won’t come back down. Thought Dib.

Better not. He might make even more noise if he did.

Dib sighed and walked over to Zim, cupping both his hands and leaning down slightly to brace himself. Zim put a hand on his shoulder and stepped into the hand leverage before him. He wasn’t that heavy, thankfully, but Dib still grunted a bit as he lifted Zim up above his head until the little human could grab a hold of a branch and clamber up by himself. He shuffled around a wider branch until he was in a comfortable seated position, or, well, as comfortable as sitting in a tree could be.

“Okay so now just try and untwist the cables, just throw them down here when you can and-”

“I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING DIB-STINK!!” Zim called down, his newfound height over his companion making him feel giddy. Or maybe he was still tired.

Dib sighed, again, and lowered his gaze back to eye level. He scanned the forest around him. Past the busted up metal and the broken bits of nature around it, it was strange. It felt weird to Dib, being in a place that’s not surrounded of glass containers full of fluids, or screens with paragraphs of information and diagrams he had to copy down; no schedules for doing ‘real science’, as his Tallest would say. It was a weird feeling… he was still processing the entire running away part, and slowly realising how lost he felt on this weird planet wasn’t helping it. He had the ship to help focus him for a moment, but that was too tied to everything back home for him to really get distracted. The little human he followed was distracting, sure, but he also wasn’t a particularly nice distraction- being yelled at for being weird felt too similar to before. Being called a freak by all the other people in his profession for being into the unexplained. He was a scientist for Irks sake his whole THING was to EXPLAIN things- dammit!

His antennae twitched as they heard a gentle thunk against the ship. Something was there.

Cautiously, Dib extended his working PAK leg, and held it, pointed forward, at his side. He crept around the ship to where the sound was. Was it another human? Had he been found out? Zim said other humans might not take too kind to aliens so he should really be on his guard-

“Grarh!”

A small, fuzzy black bear cub was pawing at the ship and sniffing it.

Dib put his weapon away and sighed, this thing seemed harmless. Its claws looked big but it was very small and stumbling about a lot so it didn’t pose a threat. …It was also pretty cute.

Dib crouched down slowly as he watched it fall over itself.

“Hey little guy… what are you doing here? It’s not safe for you to play with this thing you know, it’s not even from your planet. I bet you didn’t know that, huh?” He smiled at the bear. It turned to him and made a silly grunt.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about you yet. I don’t know much about anything here.” His realisation that he was, in fact, talking to some creature he had never seen before, never even heard of before, was amazing to him. He relished in the feeling. Being able to find out things by himself, weird things he didn’t know about, thing’s that weren’t programmed into his PAK or that would be explained bluntly with a wave of a hand back where he came from. But the humans knew about this creature, he could just read up on it like he did with a few other things that very night, this wasn’t something unknown to the people here, so… well, you win some you lose some.

Footsteps from behind Dib caught his attention.

“I got all the wires unstuck from the branches Dib-thing! Yes Zim knows he is amazing!” Zim had finished, it seemed. And somehow managed to get down by himself, too. After narrowing his eyes at Zim, Dib turned back to look at the cub.

“What are you looking at, alien? You got bored of me saving your stupid ship that you go off t…”

Zim’s face dropped when he saw the cub, fear on his face. He whispered to Dib aggressively:

“Dib-thing. We need to leave RIGHT NOW.” He said, not taking his eyes off the animal.

“What? Why?” Dib responded in regular volume, prompting Zim to SHUSH him.

“Because!! That’s a BEAR you stupid alien!! Didn’t you see anything about them when you STOLE my PHONE last night!?”

“Well, sure, I read that humans make lots of soft toys about them and how they like honey and fish, but this one’s just a baby! Look at it Zim, really, it can’t hurt us.” Dib bent down to get closer to the bear cub, but only made it so far down before Zim GRABBED him by the coat and pulled him away.

“IT’S NOT THE BABY I’M WORRIED ABOUT!! IT’S--”

A deep grunt resounded in the forest in front of them. Dib and Zim slowly looked up, at the mother bear, standing not 20ft away, staring intently. Her eyes were black and just barely caught the light of the sun through the leaves. She was accompanied by a second cub, who stood politely by her side.  
As opposed to the other cub, still rolling around directly in front of them.

“O….kay…. that one’s… a little bigger…” Dib whimpered. Zim was clutching onto his coat as he nodded his head in reply, not wanting to make any noise.

Silent stares cut through the leaves in the forest, the cub only making grunts of boredom.

“What… does it want? Exactly?” Dib asked, voice soft, finally sensing the tension in the air. Zim, still clutched to his lab coat, leaned forward to whisper in the Irkens ear, only to realise he didn’t have any, but spoke still:

“She wants her kid back, doesn’t like that we are too close to it.”

“Oh! Well, okay I’ll just give it back then,” Dib took a step forward and leant down towards the cub, not understanding how stupid such a basic action was in that situation. Zim watched Dib, in all his ignorance, bend down to the bear cub, and attempt to pick it up, but his tense body was drawn so tight that he couldn’t reach out to grab him in time, and only managed to breathe a faint squeak out of his throat. As the mother bear grunted louder, and honed in on the two boys.

The sound of paws hitting the soil and deep growls from the large monster startled and confused Dib enough for him to drop the bears child in fear, his fight or flight kicked in and he received a surge of blinding confusion and panic- he frantically turned to where Zim was for some sort of advice, only to see him running away as fast as his little legs could. Without thinking too hard about being ditched at the drop of a hat, Dib chased after him. Listening to the sound of the bear not stopping its chase as he followed his human.

Zim could feel Dib running along beside him, the alien now caught up to him in his flee, but made no note to acknowledge it. He just kept running.  
His muscles burned with each stride of his legs and sway of his arms, he wasn’t all that athletic, but after this, he was sure he’d never want to run ever again. His heart beat in his ears, his gritted teeth made his gums frozen with the air he was sucking in. He could tell Dib was trying to talk to him, but he didn’t listen, he couldn’t listen. He was making a b-line for a ditch in the ground he could see up ahead. Or- at least, now he was, before he was just running out of- not fear- Zim is NEVER afraid! Just- safety, yeah. Yeah.  
He reached out beside him, smacking Dib somewhere and grabbed whatever part of his coat he could get a hold of, and jumped into the ditch, pulling the alien down with him. Landing harshly into the marshy pit sunken in the growth around them, a wet squelch from the moist plants and mud being disrupted underneath the two boys. Both boys stayed flat backed on the ground and waited, panting loudly. The ditch was narrow, making the breathless escapees shoulder to shoulder in the mud, looking up at the sky through the trees.

The mother bear ran over the ditch. They were no longer panting.

Ears and antennae both listened out for paw stomps and grunting, sniffing, a tall shadow blocking out the light as it stood up on its hind legs, then back down. A few fainter, younger grunts came from where they had just run from: the babies calling back their mother. Still they stayed put as the bear walked back over the ditch to its cubs, unknowingly giving the human and the bug a close up look at its long claws, their avoided fate flashing before their eyes.

Balled fists stayed balled. Breath stayed held. Eyes stayed wide.

“Pff”

Dib relaxed his shoulders, and started laughing. He laughed and sat up, then laughed about how muddy his lab-coat was. He checked on Zim, whose face was bewildered and boring right through him, and he laughed at that, too.

“WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING!?” Zim shot up to meet Dibs eye level, still scowling.

“Hahahah, ahh heh, I don’t know! That was just, so out of control, we almost- hahahah I had no idea what was going on I just ran!!” Dib lifted his goggles to wipe away a few tears that had formed from the absurd laughter of their situation. Zim did not look pleased. “WE ALMOST DIED AND YOU THINK IT’S FUNNY???” He screeched, flailing his arms about.

Dib simmered down his hysterical laughing to a few sighs and chuckles, and looked at Zim. “Oh come on, I know it was dangerous but I’ve never seen one of those before! That was almost- fun! The way that thing just galloped after us wh- OOF--!” A small but firm hand shoved into his chest, knocking him back to the ground. Zim had stood up fully, and was standing over him, anger in his eyes. “JUST because you are not from this planet DOES NOT MEAN you get to put ME!!!! IN DANGER!!! ZIM DOES NOT CARE IF YOU ARE SOME THRILL SEAKING FREAK OR WHAT, ZIM IS THE INCREDIBLE, SMART, EARTH BOY AND YOU ARE THE WEIRD, UGLY, INSECT-LOOKING SPACE ONE!!! LOOK HERE!!” He aggressively gestured towards his tarnished shirt. “IF YOU WANT ME TO HELP YOU SNEAK AROUND THIS PLANET, YOU WILL OBEY ZIM!! IF YOU DO NOT WANT ME TO THROW YOU TO THE AUTHORITIES, YOU WILL OBEY ZIM!!!”

He huffed, triumphant.

Dib barely breathed, looking up at the human, who looked much taller now that he was lying back on the floor. They stayed staring at each other, Zim feeling accomplished with his lecture, he slowly began to smile, evilly, down at the green creature below, when—

“ACK!!”

“LAST ONE BACK TO BASE GETS EATEN ALIVE!!” Dib kicked Zim off his feet (he had extended his PAK leg and hooked it around the humans legs whilst he was monologuing) and made a break for the house, glancing back to see Zim roll around for a second before bolting up right and sprinting after him- RAGE in his eyes.  
Dib listened as the feral human roared in embarrassment behind him, he beamed, giddy on the whole experience, and scampered back to the house.  
\---  
Once Dib burst through the greenery surrounding Zims residence, Zim barrelled into him at full force, almost knocking him over, and proceeded to pummel him with punch after punch, grunting angrily. It didn’t hurt that much, but it was sure annoying; like having someone throw pebbles at you.  
Dib reached out his working PAK leg and pulled Zim off him, setting him aside as if he was a ragdoll.

“HEY!! This is ZIMS house you know!!! You’re not going in there to your freakish associate without me!!” He roared. “Eh, alright fine, Gaz is probably done with the holograms by now anyway, cmon.” Zim patted himself down, glaring back and forth from Dib to the dirt-covered clothes he wore, making sure he knew he had displeased the GREAT Zim.  
Giving the taller one a hearty elbow-jab in the side for good measure, he opened the door and stepped back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 4 end
> 
> woah!! im sorry this took so long gosh i really wanted this out ages ago i just hit a solid wall when writing it. had NO idea how to continue but hopefully ill be a little better now, no promises for faster uploads but yakno, one can dream  
> anyway i hope u like it!! angst will come i promise it just starts funny and its long just- h  
> i also so desperately wanna write longer chapters but i also rly wanna kick em out so theyre done- thanks for bearing with me (ha)


	5. Recollect and deploy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the frightening encounter in the wilderness, they recollect back at the cabin before deciding on some visual changes for the aliens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOD IM SO SORRY THIS HAS TAKEN ME A MILLION YEARS TO DO.............. I'll try and update a bit more frequently gosh im so embarrassed this took as long as it did <:)  
> a quick refresh of the previous chapter for those who need it:  
> Dib & Zim went to start on fixing the ship, got chased by a bear, argued about it, and headed back to home base.

Gaz’s face was impossible to read once she laid her squinted purple eyes on the state of the two idiots in front of her. She looked them up and down, noting that Dibs previously torn up lab coat now had a fresh layer of mud covering it. His green face was dusty and lightly scratched, and he was visibly out of breath; as was the smaller of the two. Zim was sweaty and mud-covered in a similar fashion, his brow furrowed and was still staring hard into the skull of Irks head scientist so hard he might have just burned a hole through it.

They both just stood there, panting, Dib smiling awkwardly at Gaz as she continued to sit with a neutral expression on her face. The laptop was open in front of her but she wasn’t using it, the sounds of gibberish music and garbled cries faintly emitted from the console she held in her hands.

“It went _well_ , I assume?” She asked bluntly, lacking any sort of readable feeling towards the situation at hand. Zim yanked himself out of his stare as he turned to face where the sentence came from instead.  
Dib opened his mouth to begin talking, only to be interrupted by:

“THIS GANGLING IDIOT ALMOST GOT US KILLED!! Is he ALWAYS like this!?”

“Wow Dib, you seem to be pretty good at that huh?” Ah, she was _mad._ Dib rolled his eyes and huffed in annoyance, a lightly warm flush coming through his cheeks, as getting ganged up on by your long-time friend and a stranger is _kinda_ embarrassing.  
After no comment was made in retaliation, Gaz continued: “did you at least get all the main parts back in the ship? I didn’t expect you to get it all fixed but the bare minimum would be nice, you know?”

Dib stepped forward, glaring at Gaz to let her know that he took offence to her comment, but also not wanting to flat out say it to her face. She may be a bit of a bully but she’s also dangerous, not a good idea to pick a fight with her.  
“Yes, actually.”

“ZIM did most of the work, climbing the tree and jumping in a DITCH for us!! LOOK at how filthy you made Zim!!” Cried the human. He looked down at his own shirt and grimaced. Then back up to the aliens, who were now both looking in his direction. He looked between them both and realised just how filthy _they_ were, their garments and shoes had been trudging through his living space without ANY precaution at all! Zims eyes widened and he held in a breath.

“Both of you MUST change. You are both FILTHY! I can’t believe I let you in here… disgusting space creatures!!” He clutched his pink beanie from the sides and pulled it down, puffing up his chest to try get some height on them. Needless to say, neither Irken was particularly intimidated by it. Gaz kept her unreadable expression whilst Dib awkwardly cocked a non-existent eyebrow at it all.

“Eh… sorry? But we don’t have any other clothes with us-”  
“You could at LEAST take off that ridiculous lab coat when you’re inside Dib-filth.” Zim interjected. “And your UGLY SHOES!!”

Offended, Dib shucked off his lab coat as heavily as he could, and threw it directly into the noisy humans face. To which Zim spluttered and stumbled backwards, gathering the coat up in a ball and throwing it aside, pinning his strangely purple irises on his assailant and all but snarling. Dib looked back at him and smiled evilly, only changing his wicked expression once he realised that the hothead he just chucked something at was marching his way, and punching him right in the gut. It was his turn to splutter and stumble backward, steadying himself against the wall of the cabin. Before he could retaliate, something small and plastic his him in the side of the head.

“Hey stupid, stop being stupid and upload this to your PAK already.” Gaz had thrown the end of a wire chord his way, the other end plugged into some device, that was then plugged into Zims little computer. He cocked an ‘eyebrow’ over at his assistant who just groaned at his lack of understanding.

“The disguise you idiot.”

“OH!” Dibs antennae shot up and his green face went a weird dark purple-ish colour as faint embarrassment hit yet again. “Right! Yeah okay co- …wait. How do I know you didn’t just make me look really ugly?”

Gaz smiled ever so slightly in response, anyone who didn’t know her couldn’t have been able to tell her face changed expression at all. But Dib could, and he knew that it didn’t mean anything good, given the context.   
“I don’t need to do that for you, you already do such a good job at that.” Zim held back a laugh very poorly behind them both. Dib didn’t turn to look, he just slumped his shoulders down and sighed loudly.  
Whist he extended out a PAK leg and fiddled with attaching the stick to the corresponding socket on the inner wall of his metal back compartment, Zim hung up his tarnished lab coat on the staircase banister, and removed his shoes, before coming back round to the seating area and slumping down on the couch.

He stared hard at Gaz’s boots with intent for her to see. He wanted to just tell her to remove them but also wanted to keep his head attached to his body, even _he_ was aware enough not to boss her around. She certainly has a presence about her. Zims eyes wandered and looked up, only slightly, not quite enough to make proper eye contact with her. The bizarre lifeform using his armchair had some sort of purple long-sleeved dress- or possibly tunic- over her form; she was leaning forward to give room for the gadget wedged into her spine, not much though- those things seem quite well compact, Zim thought. On the left side of the tunic-dress-thing was a black insignia, just noticeable over the dark purples of the fabric it was sewn into. Or maybe not sewn? Zim had no idea what fabric their clothing was made from. He didn’t get much of a feel of the lab coat that was hurled into his face, really. That did make Zim wonder… he looked back over to where he hung up the garment, and sure enough, the same insignia was marked on that as well. He turned back to Dib and, there it was again, only this time it was much more obvious, a bright white symbol contrasting to its black background, the long-sleeved turtleneck thing the tallest one wore. Zim made note that Dibs wriggling hands were also black, and assumed it was just some kind of gradient on their skin; to go from green to black and the hands, sort of like some lizards he was aware of- or even moths, come to think of it just a lot of animals, really.  
He felt himself staring, so pulled his gaze away back to the floor by the purple Irkens feet. Who’s boots where now off and neatly placed beside the chair she sat on, neither of them made any acknowledgement of it, but, Zim felt… something… about the gesture…

Before he had time to think on it, a weird metal click nose caught his attention, along with a soft sigh over to his right.

“Hey there we go! Alright cool, it’s up.” Dib smiled and passed the wire back to Gaz. Both she and Zim stared at him, anticipating something, it made Dib noticeably uncomfortable. Was he missing something again??

“…What?”

“Aren’t you going to activate it?” Zim asked, for both him, and the only other person who isn’t Dib.

“Wuh- now? Do I need to? I mean it’s only us three and, Zim, you said no one comes here so it’s not like we-”

“Oh come on at least try it and make sure it works.” Gaz spat. Making Dibs antennae lay flat against the back of his head.

“Oh… kay geez, if it’ll make you- hey what about your one? Is that done too?”

“Yes of course, I’ve already tested mine and it works fine. You’ll have to remove your gloves though, humans have five fingers and it looks really weird stuffing five of those into something just made for three.”

“Right- yeah ok, hang on.” Dib pulled back the sleeves of his shirt and grabbed the end of the glove, they came all the way up his forearm, which surprised Zim a lot, he was ready to accept that the black hands thing was just their skin, but this is cool too he supposes. Dibs hands revealed the same green coloured hands under them, the three finger… clawed? Appendage reminding Zim yet again that, these two really are aliens who are not like him at all.

Dib stood and took a breath, looked between the two pairs of eyes set on him, and had his PAK switch on the hologram.

There was a weird blurring noise as it flickered on and across his body. It FELT weird, too; as if it had some weight to it, the concentrated energy or electrical field of the hologram forming new bits of ‘body’ making him feel a little disoriented. Seeing a nose in between his eyes was a new and very weird sensation. Looking down at his hands and seeing ten moving fingers instead of his usual six was another, reaching up to his head and feeling the odd buzz of where the projection of ears on the side of his head protruded, again, very strange. It kinda felt… good? Dib liked the feeling of not being himself, or at least, not his recognisable self. He rolled up his sleeves again and got a look at his new skin colour, it wasn’t as pale as Zims, a little darker in fact. He lifted his head up and looked around the room, excitedly almost, to look for a mirror. He saw one on the wall behind him and he rushed towards it, shuffling around the table and knocking into the corner slightly.  
Once he got to the mirror, he got a good look at his new head of hair, black and scruffy, short, but longer than Zims, slightly shaved at the sides, sort of like Zims actually, but not at the very back. The most noticeable thing however, was the big cowlick sticking up at a weird angle on the top of his head, he turned to Gaz, who seemed to already know what he was going to ask.

“For your antennae, it’s easier to mask them if there’s something around them, my hair covers mine, too.”

“Oh, cool! It’s not… too out there is it? We want to blend _in_ you know.”

“HA!” Zim laughed, “TRUST me Dib, there are plenty of ridiculous humans with even more outrageous heads of hair, you’ll only look slightly like a huge weirdo.”

“Gee, thanks.” He scoffed.

“Uh, I don’t think that’s what you need to be concerned about anyway,” Gaz waited until Dib had his eyes on her before she pointed to her own eyes, then back to him.  
Dib furrowed his brow at her, (which he could actually do now, now that he actually _had_ eyebrows) but turned to see what she meant regardless. And there, plain as day, were two, huge, _very blue,_ Irken eyeballs staring at him.

“What’s… what’s up with that?”

“I’m honestly not sure, it wasn’t like that with mine… maybe it’s your goggles? Take those off.”

Dib did as instructed, and unstrapped his goggles off his head and blinked a few times as the air hit his eyes. When he looked back into the mirror, his eyes were… still very much the same. None of them said anything and both aliens stared in confusion.

“I… I don’t understand? Does it not register my eyes as… eyes? I don’t get it…”

He turned for some sort of reconciliation, but was just met with an equally confused look from the other bug eyed space creature in the room. Zims blank stare was just from him not understanding what’s going on. Although, after a few moments, he stood up, eyes wide.

“Hang on! Zim has an idea!!” And before any protest could be made, he was off and up the stairs into his room.

Dib and Gaz awkwardly looked at each other, both confused and, kind of bewildered at what this human could have to help with this particular issue, but also not willing to object to it just yet. They both stared at the empty staircase that the human had just scrambled up, listening to him clunking stuff around in a room above. After a short while, Zim came crashing back down the stairs as fast as he went up, a single stumble would’ve caused him to fall. He stood a little too close to Dib for comfort, and held out a small plastic pot? Of some kind?

“Here! These should help make your eyes look like mine.” He smiled happily as he watched the alien grab the pot with his now-five-fingered hand, and take a step back toward the mirror. He opened the pot with a soft click, and looked inside: The pot was split into two segments, both with a shallow amount of some sort of clear solution in it, along with some odd, very thin shaped… disk? Things? Dib had no idea what he was looking at, so he turned to Zim with an eyebrow raised, (again, an expression he can now convey a lot more easily, now that he HAS those).

“Oh for god’s sake you don’t know how to put in contacts? Here look- Zim will show you.” Dibs space was invaded again by the smaller boy standing next to him to see his own reflection, he leaned forward and lifted his hand up to his eye, his eye rolled around a little as he appeared to be _pinching his eyeball?_ After a short battle with that, Zim stood back and showed Dib one of the same small disks sitting on the tip of his finger. Dib looked up at the human again and-

“W-WAIT YOUR EYE!! IT-”

“HEH What? You thought my eyes were naturally purple? Well I can dream! But no, Zim wears these.”

“You…wear things over your eyes to change the colour? What’s wrong with your normal eye colour- brown looks fi-”

“ZIM JUST LOOKS COOLER THIS WAY!! I JUST WANT TO!!! Now are you going to USE the contacts OR NOT because I WILL take them off you and you’ll have to find some OTHER excuse for your freakish swollen looking blueberry spheres in your massive skull!!!” He shouted, loudly.

Dib un-winced his face and raised a hand up in reluctant surrender, he sighed and turned to face the mirror again.

“Jeez dude okay… Ok so I just, like, pull my eye open and what? Put it on?”

“Oh my god let me do it for you-” Scoffed Zim as he reached up towards Dibs face. Dib did not take kindly to the sudden hands in his vision, and leaned away.

“HEY NO I’m not letting you TOUCH my eyes! I can do it!”

“NO YOU CAN’T YOU KEEP ASKING HOW TO-”

“I ONLY ASKED ONCE AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN TRY TO-”

“JUST LET ME DO IT I DO THIS EVERY DAY—”

After some more shouting back and forth, and a few hands flying towards faces, Dib finally had his contacts in, and he now had a set of human-passible eyes! His irises were a hazel colour, similar to Zims natural colour just a bit lighter, and he had a lot of fun watching them stay fixed on his reflection as he tilted his head around. Irkens eyes are just blocks of colour and shine, they don’t have any obvious pupils to tell what direction they’re looking. It’s a pretty good tactic for playing dead or sneaking glances at people you’re with without them knowing, but Dib was very fond of his new eyes. Zim gave him the rundown on how to keep them clean and safe and to not wear them near excessive heat, or when he sleeps (which Dib re-informed him to Irkens lack of a need for sleep) as well as how to remove them correctly. Dib gave a back handed ‘thank you’ to the human and put the small pot into his PAK for safe keeping.

“Alright.”

Both boys looked over to Gaz, who had stayed out of their quarrel, as she stood up off her chair and folded her arms.

“Let’s go back out there and continue with the ship, if you’ve got all the bits together then-”

“WE’RE NOT GOING BACK OUT THERE!” Zim interrupted, immediately sensing that was a bad idea as he saw Gaz’s expression change. “I- I mean- we can’t, it’s not safe in the area… weeee almost died? Remember?”

“Yes. I remember.” She replied.

“YES of course you remember! I was just-”

“Why is it not safe? You never explained why you ‘almost died’, just that it happened.”

She was right, they came back tattered and messy without really explaining why. They both got side-tracked. Still, desperate for the accusing glare to go away, Zim began to explain. He gave Gaz the run-down of the events of earlier that morning. How he was the one up in the tree getting stuff done, whilst Dib was talking to baby animals, even though Dib insisted he ‘was not talking to them!’ And how the mother bear chased after them through the woods, and how it was thanks to Zims quick thinking that they were able to duck and cover away from the charging beast. Just- really hammering down how Dib did nothing of use during the entire ordeal. Of course he retaliated, denied Zims accusations and kept pushing that it was also partly Zims fault for not explaining properly, or something.

The explanation-gone-argument made Gaz regret her asking in the first place, she slumped back down in the armchair and groaned loudly in irritation.

“Alright, well, if we can’t get any more work on that done, what are you gonna do? You’re not gonna just stay in here are you? I don’t want to have to deal with you if you two are gonna argue all day.”

Again, both Dib and Zim shared a glance at each other, a weird sense of tension loomed over them both. Dib, wanting to detach the uncomfortable eye contact, wandered his eyes around the room; there was the seating area, the sofa, armchair and small table that had Gaz’s equipment strewn about it, along with Zim’s human computer and console. The kitchen area was after that, though he wasn’t all that hungry, he kept his gaze moving and found his coat hanging up still- that’s an idea!

“Oh- well I could fix my coat! It’s pretty torn up so I could just stitch that together!” Dib proposed.

“Okay, then what? It’s not like you’ll take all day doing that- and if this stupid bear issue is really that big of a deal I don’t want to be stuck with you for even longer.”

“Gee, thanks Ga-

“WAAAIIT ZIM HAS ANOTHER IDEA!!” Zim interrupted again, and, almost instinctively, Grabbed a hold of Dibs sleeve, tight enough to prevent him from moving away.

Ignoring that act, Zim continued: “You want to look human, right? Well as a human, Zim knows that walking around in a weird lab coat with armour-clothes on underneath isn’t going to do you ANY favours- so Zim proposes we get you BOTH some human-fitting clothing!! Plus your current ones are horrible anyway.”

Dib wriggles his arm out of the humans grasp at that last comment, but doesn’t entirely dismiss him. Surprisingly, he actually likes that idea quite a lot! But he isn’t in a hurry to show a sudden burst of enthusiasm, so he calmly looks between Gaz and the human, and thinks to himself for a moment.

“Would there be other humans around?” He asked.

“Well, yes, I’d assume. But you have your disguise now, so Zim sees no problem! If you’re SO fussy then Zim will allow you to borrow one of his coats for a short time.”

He stood and thought a little more. Or he at least pretended to, he was obviously going to say yes to the idea, but just wanted to drag the wait out a little longer, if just to avoid Gaz calling him reckless again.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea!”

“Of COURSE it’s a good idea, Zim is _full_ of good ideas!!” Zim gives himself a verbal pat on the back at Dib’s poorly hidden excitement. “Now stay put, Zim will go get you a coat to wear over your sickly uniform, alien. Girl alien- do you want one too?”

Gaz didn’t look up from her console, which she had picked back up whilst they weren’t looking, but her antennae gave away that she was thinking about it. They flapped up and down slightly as she mulled it over.

“Nah,” she concluded, “I don’t wanna be around when Dib exposes himself among the earth people, but pick me out anything cool or purple and I’ll wear it if I feel like it. If you DO make it back.”

A glum expression waved over Dibs face. Good to know his long-time colleague and friend had exactly zero faith in him. “Alright cool, I’ll pick you out the coolest looking clown costume I can.” Gaz responded with a thumbs up.

Sensing the tension and hating it- Zim mumbled an ‘ok then’ and scurried back upstairs to grab something to help cover Dib. He picked out an old coat of his, one that he hadn’t packed and brought along, but one that was already here from a long while ago. It was too big for him (probably why it was left behind) which was very convenient for the tall Dib-creature downstairs awaiting him. He patted down the coat to be sure no spiders had made a home inside its neglected sleeves. It was a red-ish colour, with wooden knobs on the front to fasten it. Thankfully Zim had no attachments to this garment, as he was prepared to burn it after the Dib is done needing it.

Zim gave his room a look over and realise how messy he’d let it get, ugh… he would have to tidy up once they got back. Honestly, what kind of a person was he to let his living space get to untidy!!

The red garment landed on the alien’s new human looking head as it was thrown from the top of the staircase onto him. He ‘ACKED’ appropriately and glared up the staircase at the cackling menace that was Zim, walking down to meet him. He had taken a little longer than assumed, but Dib noticed that the human had altered his wardrobe again whilst he was up there. He was now wearing a large, pastel pink hoodie over the top of his neon green and black striped sleeves, and a long shirt (or a dress, perhaps?) underneath, as there was a flare of hot pink fabric peeking out from under it.

Zim laced up his black boots again and retrieved the same silver and pink spotted bag from before, checking inside it to make sure he had his wallet with him, which he did. Before heading out, he turned and called back up the stairs:

“GIR!! I am heading out to help some poor morons in need because I am SO generous!! Keep an eye on the place whilst I am gone!” He said this as if he was fully convinced that the robot could hear and understand him. It was almost endearing, Dib thought. Before he got elbowed in the stomach as Zim pushed him out the way of the door. He gave a quick glance to Gaz who was unfazed by any of that before following Zim out the cabin.

The outside air was cooler than before, the earth’s weather patterns where something Dib would absolutely have to look into later. But for now- clothes.

“So- how far is the clothes?” He asked.

Zim ‘snorked’ an ugly snicker out his nose at that retort. “BAHAH- ‘where are the clothes’ listen to you. You’re never gonna pass like this, Gaz was right you’re gonna get found out as soon as we get on the bus. It’s gonna be so funny!”

“Okay, thanks. You know what I meant though, where are you getting the garments from.” Dibs footsteps became footstomps as re realised he’s opted to spend the day with a walking insult machine.

“We’re just walking to the bus stop, there should be one arriving soon, I’ll ask for our tickets and you do not say anything stupid and then we will be driven to the mall, where Zim will pick out your clothes before we return.” Zim said very methodically.

“Wait- you’re picking my clothes out? Why can’t I do that? They’re going on MY body after all.”

“Yes but who is the human out of the two of us? Zim.”

“But aren’t these all gonna be human clothes anyway- why would it matter if-”

“WE ARE HERE SHUT UP.”

It was true, it was just a short wander down the road from Zims little home to the strange metal box with a sign post by it, which Dib assumed was the ‘bus stop’. Zim perched on the awkwardly raised seats inside the shelter, he watched as Dib followed his actions. Trying to sit on the awfully uncomfortable seats was quite a task. But he finally managed to sit in a way that didn’t have his butt writhing in agony.  
They both sat there in silence and gazed across the road at the unkempt pavement across from them, a bird or two landing on the ground to peck at seemingly nothing before flying off again. Zim kept his head still whilst Dib was swivelling his around trying to look at everything he could. In doing so he noticed Zims left leg was bouncing whilst the rest of his body stayed still. He didn’t question it.

Before long, the bus pulled up and opened its doors. Dib did as instructed and followed behind Zim, trying not to stare at the man in the driver’s seat too much. He was a lot bigger than Zim, and had some hair growing on his face, but a lot less hair on his head. He also had some kind of uniform on. Dib watched as the driver pointed to a strange box by the glass, then as Zim placed a rectangular card over it before the screen showed a green ‘tick’- and they were dismissed. He followed the human as he walked to the back of the empty bus and sat down by the window. Following Zims instructions to a T, he sat down in the seat right next to him, causing their legs to knock together, they both pulled their limbs close in defence.   
Zim looked through his phone for most of the drive there, but could see Dibs stupid face as his eyes grew wide the closer they got into the more populated areas. People of all shapes and sizes walking along the road going about their business, not a single one aware that there was a space stowaway travelling alongside them all.   
Once they arrived at the appropriate stop, Zim shoved him up and out the Bus, thanking the driver on the way out.

Upon exiting the bus, Dib was hit with abundant sensations flooding him from all sides. The sound of cars zooming by and people talking, the smell of smoke and hot beverages as people rushed by. He wanted to soak in the presence of being around such a new-fangled place, but also, the sudden abundance of new information was, well, a little _too_ overwhelming. Thankfully Zim wasn’t much perturbed by all the noise, as he called back to Dib to follow him down the pavement, walking past stores and trying not to ogle at everything he passes too hard for fear his contact fall out. They made their way down the road before Dib nearly tripped over Zim, not realising he had stopped walking.

“Okay, we’re going in here now, Dib-thing. DON’T make a scene, and DON’T wander off away from Zim, got it!?” He pointed an accusatory finger at the taller one.

“I haven’t even done anyth-”

“FOLLOW ZIM!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this suffices the long wait for this chapter :'')  
> I've already started writing the next one too so hopefully this one wont take 4 months to finish !!!!!! OOPS oh well remember 2 smash like


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